Saul Gurman celebrated his 101st birthday on June 27.
The current average life expectancy in the world is 73.4 years, according to worldometers, which Gurman has outlived by more than 27 years.
He recalls memories as early as being pushed in a carriage on Everett Avenue in Chelsea, where he grew up, at just 3 years old. He remembers the names of the three Jewish communities his parents grew up in before they immigrated from Russia. He even remembers the name of the manager at his first job out of high school, Miller Automotive, more than 80 years ago.
He has lived through more than 100 years of cultural, economic, political, and social changes across the country and the world and he attributes his long life to five things, or more accurately, people: his grandmother; mom, Annie; sister, Rosalie; wife, Eva Gurman; and daughter, Debra Gurman. Saul Gurman now also has a granddaughter, Jessica Wilson, and two great-granddaughters.
Saul Gurman grew up as the youngest of four children of two Russian immigrants, Jacob and Annie, in Chelsea. His two older brothers, Samuel and Abraham, were nine and four years older, respectively. He said didn’t speak much Russian, but still speaks Yiddish. In a city of 48,000 people at the time, he said 24,000 of them were Jewish. He said his non-Jewish friends referred to him by his Jewish name, Shlamie, growing up.
“Whenever there was a Jewish holiday, the whole city closed down,” Saul Gurman said. “It was a different world then. And what was amazing that we knew no hatred amongst the different religions of the various people that emigrated to Chelsea. I mean it was like the whole world was immigrating to Chelsea at that time.”
He began working at his father’s kosher poultry shop at 9 years old and quickly learned the trade. Every Wednesday, he and his dad went into the market to pick out chickens for the shop. The chickens were driven down in large trucks from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and shop owners would buy the entire coop together. Saul Gurman said his father would pay an extra three to five cents per pound to pick out the chickens individually, rather than buying the entire coop. Even though their poultry shop was kosher, all nationalities bought their meat because they preferred the freshness of the chicken.
Saul Gurman got his first bike when he was 13 years old to deliver for his father’s shop, which he said contributed to his long life.
“I used to put a lot of miles on it because my dad expanded his customer base further out,” he said.
Saul Gurman said he worked for his father through high school, but quit the day after his graduation ceremony.
“I told my father I’m not going to work for him anymore. I quit ’cause I hated it. Right up to my Adam’s apple,” he said. “He says, ‘Well, you’re not staying home. You’re gonna go out and find a job.’”
Saul Gurman lied and told his father that was his plan, but went to watch the Boston Braves for 50 cents. On the way to the game, he came across a job opening at Miller Automotive. He said his manager jokingly told him to be ready for a test after his month on the job — to memorize the seven-digit serial numbers and three-digit codes for the fuel pumps of every car in the shop.
“A month went by and this starry-eyed kid was anxious to do everything right, goes up to (his boss) the month later, and the piece of paper — the heavy paper — in my hand and I said, ‘OK. I’m ready for the test today,’” he said. “And I caught him up short, so he had a wry smile… He was getting annoyed because he didn’t catch me.”
Saul Gurman remembers after every Saturday, he took his pay next door and treated himself to a roast-beef dinner and a dessert for lunch, which cost him 99 cents.
“I always stopped on the way home, and I always picked up a 1-pound Hostess cake and a quart of chocolate. I took it home with me and around 4 o’clock I cut myself a piece of cake and have a glass of chocolate,” he said. “And purposely cut too big a piece of cake, so I had to pour another glass of chocolate milk before I finished the whole damn thing.”
He would end his Saturdays by getting ready to meet his “high-school sweetheart,” who he met as a sophomore and would later marry after returning home from World War II.
Saul Gurman is a survivor of the sinking of the HMT Rohna and was awarded a Purple Heart for his service. The Rohna, a British troopship, sank on Nov. 26, 1943 after it was attacked from the air and destroyed off the coast of Algeria. During its sinking, 1,138 men died. The incident is known as one of the greatest mysteries of the war because its survivors were sworn to secrecy for more than 50 years.
Years after the war, Saul Gurman said he became known as the “Trailer Hitch King” by owning a company, which sold trailer hitches, for 38 years. He sold hitches for nearly 350 different vehicles, including foreign imports.
Other than the “five good women in his life,” he said his other secrets to triple-digits were his routine of biking and his diet of fresh eggs and poultry growing up.
In addition to his daughter, Debra Gurman, Saul Gurman has a son, Bob Gurman, and had an older son, Steve Gurman, who died in 2017.
“I expected him to live this long only because he told me that he was going to live to 107,” Bob Gurman said at his father’s 101st birthday celebration.
He said his father made a commitment to his wife before she died that he would take care of their daughter, Debra Gurman, after she was in a car accident.
Keeping his word, Saul Gurman worked until he was 96 years old while taking care of Debra Gurman.
“That has been the story of his life,” Bob Gurman said at the celebration. “He gets up in the morning and tries to figure out ways we can make other people’s lives better, and that’s sort of what he’s lived for his whole life, is working toward making other people’s lives better.”
